Dashboard Rebuild - The Dash Caper

Whether you're restoring or just fixing-up, bringing an older Mopar back to life has always involved balancing personal time, the necessary effort, and cold, hard cash. Got the bankroll? With enough dough, virtually no obstacle stands in the way of putting together anything you can dream up, any way you want it. For the rest of us, building that 440 in the garage, or lying on the cold concrete bolting-in the front suspension, saves us the nickels which makes the project possible. Some repairs, however, just smack of looming expenditure. No matter how you slice it, you just know getting it fixed is going to soak serious cash. For E-Body fans, the padded dash has always been on this list. So, your 'Cuda dash looks like a relief map of the Mariana Trench. Whatcha gonna do? Don't expect to saunter over to the local wreckers carrying spare pocket change, and pull one on a lazy Saturday afternoon.

The heavily-sculptured dash pads used on the E-Body cars were no more prone to cracking than any other dash of the era. Thirty years later, any survivors have passed an amazing endurance test. The fact is, there really aren't that many original E-Body dashes which have endured the decades. Those NOS, or used-original pieces, which remain are highly sought after by serious restorers and hobbyists alike, and carry a hefty tariff. An alternative to shopping original is to spring for a pro-rebuild on your existing dash. We know of only one company--Just Dashes--that can properly do the thermal vacuum forming for a stock appearance. Another option is to shop the Year One catalog for their reproduction, which is built on original steel backings--an excellent piece. Choose any of the following three approaches for a clean-looking dash: shop NOS, get a thermal vacuum-formed re-skin, or buy the reproduction. Just don't expect much change back from $600.

Aware of the high cost involved in remedying a cracked E-Body dash, we were intrigued to find a molded, semi-rigid dash cover designed to repair these dashes on display at a local Mopar show. We found that the Dashcap(TM) was manufactured by Accuform Plastics, a company known to Mopar Muscle readers for their recently-released reproduction E-Body door panels. Priced at a little over a $100, the product instantly appealed to our penny-pinching nature, while the molded form of the Dashcap promised a do-it-yourself installation. Compared to the cost of the alternatives, the Dashcap seemed to be a bargain, so we decided to give one a try. The Dashcap is pre-molded in plastic to the exact shape of the original dash. It's designed to glue over the existing cracked dash, effectively giving it a new skin. Since the thermal-molded Dashcap is semi-rigid, it is made to hold its shape, even when the surface beneath is less-than-perfect. Information from Accuform suggests that the cover can be bonded over the original cracked dash, with the only prep required being to trim back any raised areas. We were advised that the dash need not even be removed from the vehicle for installation. In our installation, partly because our original dash was so bad, we felt some additional prep would be an advantage, and our dash was removed for the rework.

With huge gaping cracks, holes, and plenty of the inner foam core showing, our dash was seriously trashed. We figured if we could bring this nightmare back to life, in our own garage, for less than $150, then the Dashcap would have proven its worth. We just wouldn't have felt right about tossing the cover over our unstable mess of a dash, so we purchased a couple tubes of SEM Flexible Welding Compound. The SEM Weld is a bonding and filling product used in the autobody industry for repairing flexible rubber bumpers and other plastics on modern cars. The dash was reworked and bonded with the weld compound to fill the holes and bond the patchwork that remained of the factory skin. We finished by sanding the repairs level to the original shape. The repaired dash looked ugly after the rework, but it was actually level and well-bonded together. Slipping on the Accuform Dashcap was just the icing on the cake, providing our dash with a tailor-made new skin. With careful installation and attention to detail, our results with the Dashcap were nothing less than amazing.